The Denver Broncos have been searching high and low for their next franchise quarterback since Peyton Manning retired in 2016.
The search may have ended.
With the 42nd overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, Missouri gunslinger Drew Lock fell right into the outstretched arms of general manager John Elway, and the excitement among the Broncos fanbase is palpable.
Lock has everything you want in a franchise quarterback. A rocket arm. Cool confidence. A swagger that screams, “Follow me, I got this.”
It’s been less than a season, but Broncos country seems confident that Lock is the quarterback of the future and can lead the franchise back to the postseason and beyond.
So, is Lock really “the guy”?
Let’s pump the breaks for a second.
It’s true the kid from Mizzou has all the tools of a franchise-caliber QB. But, how quickly we forget that Broncos Country was also pumped about another signal-caller whose career also started with a 4-1 record: Trevor Siemian.
While we all know how that one turned out, let’s take a quick walk down memory lane. To the beginning.
Siemian and Lock have eerily similar marks through their first five games under center:
Siemian: 4-1 record, 7 TDs, 3 INT, 1,054 yards passing, 64.9% completion, and a 92.4 quarterback rating
Lock: 4-1 record, 7 TDs, 3 INT, 1,020 yards passing, 64.1% completion, and a 89.7 quarterback rating
After just five starts in 2016, analysts were ready to anoint Siemian as “the guy.” Yet, he closed the year out with an 8-6 record.
The next year, Siemian won a training camp battle over Paxton Lynch to re-claim the starting job for the 2017 season. However, he ultimately finished with a 5-5 record as the starter.
Some might say that Siemian had a better team around him entering 2017, but that’s not exactly the case.
Lock and Siemian both played with bottom-of-the-league offensive lines that continued to struggle. Both quarterbacks had 1,000-yard rushers in C.J. Anderson and Phillip Lindsay. Siemian did have both Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, but he didn’t have a tight end. Lock has a 1,000-yard wide receiver in Courtland Sutton and a (hopefully) future Pro Bowl tight end in Noah Fant.
Like Siemian, Lock has proven that he deserves to start all 16 games in his second season. But let’s curb the enthusiasm for a moment. History’s not exactly working in his favor.
Since the common draft in 1967, there have been 58 quarterbacks selected in the second round. Only 18 (31%) have started a playoff game. Just three of those QBs have won a Super Bowl.
More recently, of the last six quarterbacks drafted in the second round, only one has started a playoff game: 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo. It took him six years and a trade away from the New England Patriots to get him there.
Make no mistake, Lock is easily the Broncos best quarterback since Siemian. And he has the weapons he needs to thrive, with Elway taking wideouts Jerry Jeudy and K.J. Hamler in the first two rounds of this year’s draft, while also adding a dynamic running back Melvin Gordon as a free agent this past offseason.
Still, Lock will have to accomplish something that has proven to be quite rare for second round quarterbacks throughout league history.
If Lock struggles in 2020 and the Broncos fail to make the playoffs for a fifth-straight year, the Broncos may very well have to blow this thing up and start over in 2021.
Lock has displayed the physical ability, drive, and leadership skills needed to be the future face of the Broncos. But at the end of the day, the NFL is a win-now league, and he has to prove it by leading the Broncos back to the playoffs.
I believe Lock has the goods, and he clearly has the weapons. Yet, until he delivers, I’m not going to get my hopes up.
Statistics courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.
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